Dangerous Schools

Now a grad student stops taking his medication and guns down a half-dozen kids at Northern Illinois.

Why do the crazy shooters seem to be students these days? Will we have to worry about sending our kids to college these days? How likely is this school or that school to produce a homicidal maniac?

What can be done to stop this trend? What should be done?

The left says outlaw guns. Seems naive to me.

The right says allow concealed carry permits for professors, staff and students on campus. Evokes the wild west in a way.

How about armed security guards all over campus? Not a great image either.

There is plenty of violence in the public schools as well these days. High schools where the biggest student offenses in the 50's were gum chewing and running in the hallways have changed into places where students assault each other, take and sell illicit drugs, commit rape, steal, and do many other shocking and illegal things.

We don't hear as much about that, because school administrators have become quite skilled at keeping such events out of the news.

What's causing it all? Could it be rampant permissiveness? The "anything goes" philosophy that tells kids to explore their feelings. To experience life. To honor diverse beliefs and behaviors and never judge another.

Seen any studies comparing public places of learning to private, and the relative incidence of crime and violence among them? I wonder, would we find a correllation between a school's emphasis on morality and it's experience with student violence and criminality?

Will such studies be performed by academics who are monolithically liberal? Not as long as they don't want to know the answer.